"Ah," said Colonel George; "it was his knowing how to drum that made me think so. And so you had to carry the poor fellow all this way the other day? Well, it's more than many a strong man could have done. Many's the man I've seen break down from the weight of his pack, and many's the wife I've seen take the load off her husband's back and carry it for him like a brave soul." He looked up at the woman and saw her eyes glisten. "Ay," he said, "you've seen it too, maybe? Now, my good mistress, just tell me what the serjeant did to your son here, or what has happened to him to bring him to this state."
The woman hesitated long. "'Tis a long story," she said at last, "but maybe it's time that it was told; for I'm thinking that before long there may be none to tell it. You've been kind to my boy, the both of 'ee, and you've a promised to keep my secret. So if you have a mind to hear, I'll tell 'ee."
So Colonel George stood in the doorway holding the horses, while Lady Eleanor sat on the turfen table by the sick man; and the woman began her story.
CHAPTER XIII
"Years agone, long afore you ever come this way, my Lady, my father lived not above seven or eight mile herefrom, up to Loudacott; you must surely have heard the name of the place. Well, there he lived with his own bit of land, for he was a yeoman, he was, and the Clatworthys had lived up to Loudacott hundreds of years, as he used to tell me. There wasn't but the three of us, my father—Jeremiah Clatworthy was his name—my mother and myself; for I was the only child they had a-living. It's a lonely place, is Loudacott, and it wasn't many folks that we saw there when I was a child; but when I growed up into a comely maid, and men seed me now and again to market or fairing time, they began to come a-courting; for 'twasn't me only that they would get, but forty acre of land with me, if father liked mun well. There was more came than you'd a think for, plenty enough to turn the head of a silly maid; and there was one that father favoured particular, for he had land close nigh by Loudacott, but I didn't like he—never could. There wasn't but one that pleased me, and that was Jan Dart. You know his old mother that lives to Ashacombe, or used to live, for they tell me that she's a-dying. She couldn't never abide the name of me, Jan's mother couldn't; and father, he couldn't abide Jan. For his father hadn't been more than a servant with the old squire, nor his mother neither, and Jan, he'd a been bound 'prentice to a shoemaker, and wasn't long out of his time; while we was the Clatworthys to Loudacott.
"Well, the men come, and I was well enough pleased to keep mun dancing round me, and poor Jan with the rest of mun, for you may depend that I wasn't going to let he go. I'd a-been a bit spoiled, for my mother had had a boy and another maid besides me, and fine children too, as I've been told; but she'd a-lost the both of them o' smallpox, so that there wasn't but me left. So I couldn't tell what to do, for I know'd but one thing for sartain, that the man that father wanted for me wasn't the man that I wanted for myself. But there was a wise woman—Betsy Lavacombe her name was, I mind well, but what use to tell you that?—that I used to see; and terrible afeared of her the folks was. It was she that built this house, and no one knew where she lived except myself, nor knoweth till this day. But I wasn't afeared of her, for I had a-helped her more than once, and used to put out a bit of mate for her now and again when I could; and she would always carry any message from me to Jan or from Jan to me. And I asked her many times which of mun I should marry, but she wouldn't never tell me more than that I should cross the sea and come back with gold. 'That's enough for 'ee,' she would say, 'don't ask no more. You shall cross the sea and there will be lords and gentlemen with 'ee, and your bed shall be so good as theirs, and you shall come back with gold.'
"So time went on and Jan kept courting o' me and I kept a playing with Jan, as foolish maids will, till at last one day, I forget what it was I said to mun, but he flinged away like a mazed man. 'I'll never come nigh 'ee again,' he said, 'you'll have to find me if you want to see me more; and till you find me you won't never find a man as loves you so well as I do.' And I laughed so as he could hear as he walked away, for I made no doubt but he'd come again so soon as I called mun. And I mind well then that the old Betsy comed out of a hedge soon afterward—she'd a been listening, I reckon—and saith she, 'Shall I call mun back to 'ee now? Best lose no time,' she saith. But I let mun go, for I depended that he'd come back, though I don't deny that I wasn't easy.
"And it wasn't above a week afterward that the old Betsy cometh back and saith, 'You'd best have let me call mun back when I told 'ee'; and then she told me that a serjeant was come to Ashacombe and that Jan was listed for a sojer and was agone. It was evening then and I heard mother calling, so I went into house like a dumb thing, for I couldn't think what I should do without Jan; and I minded the words that he had said, that I must come and find mun if I wanted to see him more; and I lay awake all night a-crying to think that I couldn't tell where to seek for mun, for find mun I must. But next day when I went out I glimpsed the old Betsy on the road not far away and whistled to her (for she never showed herself about Loudacott if she could help, but watched for me and whistled), and when she saw my face, 'Where's your rosy cheeks gone, my dear?' she saith. 'A red coat's red enough without they to dye mun, I reckon.' But she wouldn't tell me where he was agone, till I said that if she did not I would go out to find mun for myself. 'Do you mane that?' she saith—I mind it as if 'twas yesterday—'Then I'll take 'ee to mun. 'Ere, look 'ee! I'll give 'ee time to think about it, and if you mane to go sarch for mun, do you meet me here with your clothes o' this day fortnight when the moon rises.'
"And with that she went away and showed herself down Ashacombe ways 'most every day, to make folks think she was busy thereabouts—that false and artful she was. But when the days was gone, and mortal long days they was to me, she was waiting for me as she said, for I wasn't agoing to change my mind; and then it was that she brought me to this house and told me to mark the way well. We stayed here till night, and then we started off walking across the moor, the both of us, until morning, for she wasn't going to let a maid like me walk by myself, she said. We took a bit of mate with us and flint and steel, and many was the things that she taught to me on the road for a body to make herself nighly as comfortable in the open air as in ever a house.